I'm in the little-better-than-motel / value shopper camp, too. Here's what I have found valuable. I mostly get a hotel card only for the sign-on bonus and/or super flexibility of its points, and not worry about hotel status. I'm not a big spender either so have to be careful with the size of the required initial spends.

Amex Hilton: 50,000 points for $500 initial spend, no annual fee even past first year. I pre-paid my wireless phone bill for a couple of months to get the 6X points. I figure I should get a night or two at Hamptons or Hilton Garden Inns out of this bonus if I shop around.

Amex SPG: I got it a while back when the bonus was higher with a lower spend. I was able to transfer 20K for one air ticket, and have a bit left over for some cash & points on a category 1 Four Points.

Chase Sapphire Preferred: 50K Ultimate Reward points for 3K spend in 3 months, which is gonna be a challenge for me. I mention this one because the Ultimate Rewards points transfer 1:1 to Hyatts, and some low end Hyatt Places start at 5K redemptions. Or I can choose to transfer to airline programs, I forget which ones now.

Once I can apply for Chase again (I'm kind of maxed out now :D ) I think I'll try for the Priority Club (Holiday Inns & Intercontinentals) for the bonus. Unless a better Chase offer comes along :D

Other than that I shop around for Priceline, Hotwire, and/or the opaque sites through Travelocity and Expedia.

Unrelated to CC usage, this brings up a good point. It can be useful to hold a small balance in a variety of hotel programs for unusually low-priced redemptions. For example, Priority Club puts a handful of properties on sale for 5k points every few months. Can be a great value.

Each program has its own unique ways to accumulate points in small quantities. PC, Hilton, and a few other programs have TopGuest. Hilton has been running some big bonuses from rental cars. Always have to keep your eyes open...

Yep, it sounds like we are both in the same boat. What I am learning tonight is that I need to rack up all the bonuses I can get.

I started with the Citi AA CC's, did the AMEX then because I hired a contractor to do some work who took CC's I was able to get the spend done for the Sapphire Card. So I basically just went on a spending spree that covered the spends on 6 CC's and now have 300k AA miles, 75K AMEX and 50K Sapphire points. Add that to my 76K UA/Continental miles and I feel like I have a healthy amount of air miles and need to figure out what to do with the AMEX/ Sapphire points.

I'm now turning my attention to Hotel points. So at the moment I am looking for hotel CC's with low spends though I am trying to figure out how to get the SPG asap. The Hyatt, HHonors, Amtrak look like the next ones on my list.

Good luck with those bonuses.

Thanks for the tips.

My vote: depending on your preferred alligence, either SPG or Marriott cards. I've been happy with both.

The Choice Visa only earns 5 points/dollar when used on Choice stuff (hotel stays, hotel gift card purchases, etc). Elsewhere it earns only 2 points/dollar.

https://www.barclaycardus.com/apply/...8&cellNumber=2

Like a broken record player I am going to repeat why I enjoy the PC Club Visa

1) No foreign transaction fees.
2) 5 points/$ @ PC properties. Combine this with your F&F rate, and you are banking on points and savings. If the F&F rate doesn't make sense financially then use your points. But if you are looking to try and just build miles that F&F rate + 5pts/$ is a great way to stay cheap and earn big.
3) Low $49 yr annual fee.
4) It is a VISA (most of these travel cards are AMEX and it is nice to have a good visa to use)
5) Free hotel night voucher per year after owning the card for 1 year
6) 10% reward redemptions on points
7) Easy platinum status through CC sign-up (60k public, 80k targeted)
8) They have a very small # of properties for 5k that are rotating in and out on-sale. But you can get nights generally speaking for 10k.

So if you try and value all this....
80k sign-on.
Redeem 80k = 8k left over. You have almost 9 nights of stay if you stay @ 10k a night properties.

If you prefer to stay in "preferred location hotels", aka near magnificent mile or theme parks in orlando. You will be starting @ 15k a night.

Hilton sounds like a high rollers card. This visa pays for itself. I have no intentions on closing it. International travel and the free night are the main reasons. Research seems to show that Hilton properties are like 25k a night.

Although there is one Hilton or maybe it is Hyatt card I just saw on these forums that had 2 free nights at any hotel anywhere in the world it says (that is their property). This could be a very large reward depending on how costly of a room you can redeem.

But after those first 2 rooms the card is useless due to the fact you need to spend like 25k a year on the card to see the rewards turn in to nights.

Careful on getting the Amtrak for transfer points. You have to have $200 Amtrak travelspend on the card, and be a card holder, to transfer a max of 25K points / year.

I thought the F&F rate was ineligible for points, has that changed?

Loyalty Traveler blog has quite a few posts which compare hotel programs and their cards. A lot of your questions are answered there:
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/loyaltytraveler/

Ineligible for FF program pts, but not ineligible for CC spend pts. The CC can't differentiate between an F&F stay and a normal stay to deny you pts based on your rate. As long as you pay the hotel (as opposed to say Priceline), you will get the bonus pts for CC spend.

You do not earn points for your stay @ the hotel property when using F&F rate, but you earn points on the $ spent on your PC Club Visa card, and since it is IHG...you earn 5 points per dollar spent.

So a $500 stay will still net you 2500 PC points when you pay using your PC Club Visa.

After looking at the SPG Preferred Guest Amex.....

I would say these 2 hotel cards are the cats meow. 80k points with 10% redemption and 1 free night a year is all fine and good, but PC club hotels are not necessarily up to SPG standards it would seem.

All of SPG's hotels are "pretty friggin wicked". E.G. the 3000 to 4000 point Four Point @ Cocoa Beach with a surf shop, surf lessons, and rentals all on-site. Very cool decor. I just can't help but think that @ 3000 to 4000pts a night (or $93-100/night stay)....

If you can hit the 4.5k spending req. on the SPG card, thats 35k points, maybe another 5k if you get a ref. If you don't get the referral then the 35k points could stilll land you 11 or 12 nights in their Cat 2 hotels. And their Cat 2 hotels look to be much nicer than your "any HIX".

So I am thinking of signing up for this card even if I only get 10k + 5k referral than I have 15k points, which is worth $400-500 if you think of it as 5 3000 point Cat 2 stays.


My jaw just drops when I look @ SPG's hotel line-up. Plus their points are POINTS! And by that I mean they transfer extremely wellllllllllllllll.

Ok, gotcha now. Tx for the explanation.

Thanks to all for the replies. Articles I've found at Loyalty Traveler explain most of the questions I have about the details of the different programs. Just like the airline bonuses I'll go for the hotel CC's that are offering the best bonuses and then from there figure out which programs I like most. Thanks again for your help.